Tag: Basil

Today’s dish is just something I put together with ingredients I just happened to have on hand. It has no special culinary roots, and, really, is just vaguely a sort of east-west fusion type of creation. I did, however, get to use some of the Turmeric Puree I featured in another post not long ago … Continue reading “Spicy Basil Shrimp”→

I purchased some nice thin veal cutlets in my local store just the other day and one of the uses I planned was for a pasta dish something like a Puttanesca (but with veal added). I only had green olives, rather than the black sort I usually use, and I also happened to have some nice fresh Basil that I thought might make a nice addition. Altogether, my creation departs quite a bit from most Puttanesca recipes, but it is close enough, I think, that the name still applies … Continue reading “Pasta Vitello Puttanesca”→

As I had some nice fresh Basil on hand, I wanted to put together a Pesto, primarily for use as a pasta sauce. I also wanted to do something a little different than the usual Genoese style with garlic and pine-nuts and I decided to use green olives and green Jalapeno for a tangier, spicier result. The name I came up with, Pesto Piccante, has, it turns out already been used before and , when I searched the name on line I found some (mainly commercial) productions that are tomato based, and look very much to me like Italian variations of Salsa.

I am not providing a formal recipe for today’s post as I hadn’t intended to do a post at all. Rather, I bought some Whole-wheat paste to try for the first time and I decided on a ‘Carbonara’ sort of dish. I had some fresh Basil on hand and I thought it might be an interesting addition. It certainly turned out to be just, and so I decided to share…

Basically, I prepared the spaghetti is usual. While it was boiling I sautéed some bacon and, before it started to become crisp, I added a little slivered onion and let it brown. I made the basic Carbonara ‘sauce’ by beating an egg with a good helping of coarsely ground black pepper, and some grated Parmesan Cheese. I also shredded some of my fresh basil.

Once the onions were nicely golden, I added the drained pasta and sautéed for a minute or so. Finally, I took the pan from the heat, added the egg mix and the basil, tossing quickly to coat all the pasta. I served it hot with a little extra cheese. I really enjoyed this and, next time, I will likely use a bit more basil…

This little item arrived in a parcel of foodstuffs I recently ordered from down south. I had completely forgotten ordering it but I ended up being very glad I did …

It is a Cock Brand™ product, and at first, I mistook their logo as being the same as that of the manufacturers who make one of my favorite Sriracha Sauces. They are a different company, however, but when I checked their website, I saw a number of other products I have bought before and which I found to be very good.

The ingredient list on the label specifies the main components being, in descending quantity order: Soybean Oil, Holy Basil leaves, Garlic, Red Chili, Sugar, Salt, and Oyster Sauce. The aroma, on opening the jar, is a little hard to describe in that no specific ingredient leaps out at one… It smells a little like a mild XO sauce, but with a very herbaceous quality … even a little ‘minty’.

The flavor, though, is terrific. It is somewhat fiery, although not blindingly so, and the oyster sauce and sugar lend it a marine sweetness. The Holy Basil, which can be quite pungent, even harsh, when used fresh in some dishes, is nicely mellow in here and really adds a very pleasant herbal note to the overall flavor.

Anyway, just before this product arrived, I was trying to think of a way to ‘round out’ a specific dish I had in mind… this suddenly seemed like the perfect addition and I will be posting the recipe very shortly…

In the last few months, our local selection of lamb has gone beyond just legs and chops and many different cuts have become available. Today, I bought a large bag of frozen, bone-in pieces that will make me a fair number of meals. For my first use, I decided to prepare some using Basil. This is not as common a pairing as, say, lamb and mint, or lamb and rosemary, but the Basil I had on hand was top quality and I thought it would work nicely here, especially with zucchini as the vegetable quotient… [ Continue reading “Lamb with Zucchini and Basil”→

I bought some frozen cooked lobster back at Christmas-time to use in a seafood stew and I kept a couple for future use. As the ‘keep-until’ date is drawing near I decided to use one of them in the little appetizer dish you see above. In some ways, given the use of both chili and basil, the dish has a Thai flavor to it but, aside from this, it could easily be incorporated into a more western dinner menu.

After chopping the tail, claws, and main ‘arm sections’ into small pieces, I made a stock using the body and little legs, then reduced this to a very concentrated liquor of no more than a quarter cup or so. After, I fried some garlic puree in a little oil and added the stock along with a splash of sherry and some Sriracha sauce. When this was steaming, I added the lobster chunks and cooked for a few minutes until the sauce was almost a syrup then added chopped basil leaves, plating as soon as these were wilted.

This turned out to be a really nice dish. It was a bit messy to eat but sucking the sauce from the shell before teasing out the flesh from within was delightful. In a future evolution, I would like to try doing this with fresh, raw lobster as I think the result would be even more succulent than this…

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This particular dish is Asian in spirit but doesn’t belong to any specific cuisine. It calls for the long, slender types of eggplant common to Japanese, or south-east Asian kitchens rather than the fatter, deep purple eggplants more familiar in the west. It could easily be served as a side dish as part of a more complex meal, or eaten alone as a snack or even a simple breakfast… Continue reading “Eggs with Eggplant and Basil”→

Back in October of last year, I featured a commercially produced Lemongrass Paste in a Tube by the same manufacturer as the Basil Paste you see pictured above. I am afraid I wasn’t very kind in my review of the Lemongrass as I found it a little insipid and a pretty poor substitute for the fresh article. This product, on the other hand, is far better and one I have found very useful indeed… Continue reading “Foodstuff: Basil Paste in a Tube – Gourmet Garden™ Brand”→

This particular experiment was inspired by not much more than a need to use some basil I had in the fridge before it wilted away. I had a couple of chicken pieces set aside for supper and I decided it would be nice to bake them with a nice pesto marinade. A little lemon zest, I thought, might add a nice little sparkle of flavor… Continue reading “Lemon Pesto Chicken”→